The report, published today, marks the first step in the UK's government's push to develop policies cutting down such costs, part of a proposed food industry sustainability strategy. The strategyis being developed by government's department for the environment, food and rural affairs (Defra ).

The eventual policy could lead to increased costs for processors and retailers if government decides they must bear some of the costs of cutting down on the distance food must travel before gettingto consumers' tables.

"A study of potential policies to reduce the impacts of food transport would help to examine the advantages and disadvantages of different policies, and design a suitable integratedframework to reduce the adverse impacts of food transport," said AEA Technology, a consultancy hired to examine measuring the costs.

The report's authors suggest such polices could include:

• sourcing food more locally where appropriate through consumer awareness campaigns, public procurement, support for local food initiatives and the strengthening of UK suppliers;
• reducing car food shopping through home delivery, support for local and in-town shops and the provision of safe cycle and pedestrian access;
• reducing transport impacts through requiring cleaner vehicles, improved logistics and more rail freight;
• internalising the social costs of transport to reflect the costs to society of pollution, congestion, accidents, noise and so on in the prices paid by transport users; and,
• improving the wider sustainability of the food chain through promoting ethical trading and energy efficiency in the local food sector.

"There may be a trade-off effect between food prices and food miles," they stated. "Some policies to reduce food miles could potentially lead to higher food prices. Oneexample would be the internalisation of the social costs of food transport. However, any food price impacts will depend on the combination of policies used and on responses to those policies byconsumers, producers and industry."

The report's authors calculated the costs using "food miles", a measurement of the transportation involved in getting produce and products from the farm to consumer.

Over the last fifty years, food miles have risen, driven by a number of factors, including globalisation and a wider sourcing of food within the UK and overseas. Other key drivers include the concentrationof the food supply base into fewer, larger suppliers, partly to meet the demand for bulk year-round supply of uniform produce, a switch to routing most goods through supermarket regional distributioncentres and a trend towards the use of larger heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).

Food transport accounted for an estimated 30 billion vehicle kilometres in 2002, of which 82 per cent were in the UK. Road transport accounts for most of the vehicle kilometres, split between cars,HGVs and light goods vehicles. Food transport accounts for a quarter of all HGV vehicle kilometres in the UK.

The authors estimate the direct environmental, social and economic costs of food transport are about £9bn each year. The costs are dominated by the congestion, which accounts for £5bn of thetotal figure and 50 per cent of the social costs associated with food transport.

"The rise in food miles has led to increases in the environmental, social and economic burdens associated with transport," they stated. "These include carbon dioxideemissions, air pollution, congestion, accidents and noise. There is a clear cause and effect relationship for food miles for these burdens -- and in general higher levels of vehicle activitylead to larger impacts. Growing concern over these impacts has led to a debate on whether to try to measure and reduce food miles."

Transport and distribution costs make up about 3.5 per cent of food prices for major retailers. Improvements in the efficiency of their centralised distribution systems should have reducedtransport costs, but so far there has been no noticeable effect on food prices, because of the influence of other factors, they stated.

The authors also note that UK supermarket chains are driven by competition and that it may be difficult to squeeze much more out of them. The efficiency is not directly reflected in lower pricesfor food in UK supermarkets, where prices are 12 per cent to 16 per cent higher than in Europe. Other factors, such as the price of land and the price of fuel in the UK, may be more important factorsin the higher costs.

Christine Fisk, spokesperson for the UK's Food and Drink Federation said the industry was already in the process of reducing its impact on the environment.

"As food miles eat into profit, companies, in cooperation with their customers, have already created an extremely fuel efficient and low polluting supply chain and will therefore find itdifficult to make further reductions," she said.